116. Six on forty one
next day.
Today is the day I return to the unit after two weeks of dispatch work.
Before returning to the army, I met Eunseong and Yunseok hyung and had lunch together.
Eunseong and Yunseoki hyung sat side by side and ordered kimchi stew, and I ordered ttukbaegi bulgogi.
When the food order was finished, I opened my mouth with a very serious expression.
“By the way, Eunseong, did you buy a gun?”
Eunseong said with a surprised expression at my words.
“gun? OMG… ! Was that true?”
“Uh-huh! look at this guy He’s going to war, and he’s not going to carry a gun.”
While I was biting my tongue, Yoon Seok hyung intervened with a grin.
“Jungho, stop it now. If you do that too, Eunsung might actually buy a gun and enlist.”
Eun-seong said to me with a disappointed expression at Yun-seok-yi hyung’s words.
“what? Was that a joke?”
“haha–! Sorry.”
“Hmm… Actually, I want to shoot a gun once. I wonder what it feels like.”
“really? Are you curious about that?”
“Yeah, I’m writing a military novel these days, and I don’t know what shooting feels like, so what is this? Hmm… I couldn’t make a realistic depiction of a battle scene.”
“Five… ! So are you going to write a novel again?”
Eunseong nodded at my question and said.
“Yeah, I didn’t have anything to do after taking a leave of absence from the military in January. So, while working part-time at my father’s restaurant in Seoul, I’ve been using it in my spare time, and now I’m almost finished writing it.”
For reference, the Seoul father and mother Eun-seong refers to means Eun-seong’s biological parents, and Daejeon’s mother and father means the parents who raised Eun-seong.
Three years ago, I finished reading Silver Castle’s ＜Synapse>, and I was able to experience the magic of time disappearing in a lump as Incheol said.
But Silver Castle wrote a new novel almost to the end!
Aww—-!
I pulled the chair tighter and sat down.
“Then where are you serializing on the internet these days?”
When I arrive in Yangju today, I will visit a PC room for a while before returning to the unit.
There, the novel serialized by Silver Castle will be entered into the mind as an image.
And when I return to the unit, I was thinking of watching one episode a day… .
“I haven’t done the serialization yet.”
Zep—!
I gave up my taste buds with regret, and Eunsung continued with a smirk.
“Now that I’m in the military, when I have some military experience, I’ll try to serialize it while I retire.”
At Eunseong’s words, I nodded and said.
“If it’s a military novel, wouldn’t it be a sequel to Synapse?”
“right.”
“Then, is it SF like ＜Synapse> again this time?”
“right. I think it will be a very hard SF.”
“Then can you tell me a little bit about what it is? yes?”
Eunseong shook her head with a determined expression at my question.
“I’m sorry, but I can’t say that right now. The ending hasn’t been decided yet, but there are things to fix overall depending on the ending.”
I looked at Yunseok hyung, and he said, shaking his head.
“I don’t know either. What a great secret, he didn’t even tell me.”
Eunseong said to me as if trying to change the topic.
“By the way, is In-cheol in the same unit as you?”
“right.”
“Hmm… Come to think of it, the two of you were in the same school and in the same class from 6th grade to middle school and high school?”
I nodded, and Eunseong continued.
“nice—! Even the military is in the same unit, and they use the same office… Also! You two must have something very strongly connected!”
I just smiled at Eunseong’s words.
The fact that we were in the same class and same school when we were in middle and high school was thanks to Incheol hacking into the school administration and the Office of Education, and the fact that we are now assigned to the same unit is because of the work of Director Kim Jeong-soo of the National Intelligence Service.
“under—-! Anyway, I’m really envious. Is your military life really going to be fun?”
At Eunseong’s words, I shook my head and said.
“Well. haha–! Even if you have a best friend by your side, military life is not going to be fun.”
“why? To be honest, I am a little bit excited about my military life.”
What? what?
What are you looking forward to?
Yoon-seok hyung interrupted my dumb expression and said.
“Did I say? When this guy goes to Nonsan, he’s going to buy a gun!”
At Yoon-seok-hyung’s words, Eun-seong smiled and opened his mouth.
“It’s not like that, and going to the military is a new experience. There’s something my mom always tells me. It’s always good to have new experiences.”
Eunseong looked at me with a serious expression and continued talking.
“As long as it’s not harming others, try to experience as much as possible.”
After having lunch like that, I said goodbye to Eunseong.
“If you go to the military, when are we going to meet again?”
Eunseong said with a sad expression on my words.
“I know… I will not be able to see you again until July 2003, when I finish my military service. under—-! But on July 14, 2003… . Will that day come?”
“I will come. Stay healthy and have a good life in the military. See you in the summer of 2003.”
So Eun-seong and Yoon-seok met hyung, and I returned to the unit.
Everything was the same.
Corporal Park Kwang-soo still longed for successors, In-cheol entertained the troops with his vocal imitation, and I spent time sitting in the office and beating myself up.
Of course, I wasn’t really thinking about it, I was just trying something like this using equations derived from theoretical physics papers stored in my head.
ah… ! If there is one thing that has changed, Jin Goo has become really kind to me.
In the past, Jingu was polite to me, but now he is willing to give up his life if I ask him to.
So I returned to my daily life, and time passed slowly again.
In June, In-cheol was mortally wounded, and another month passed, and it was finally June 28.
“Loyalty! As of June 28, 2001, Private Private Chae Jung-ho was given a regular leave of 14 nights and 15 days! received. Report this. Loyalty!”
After reporting the vacation like that, I got into the deputy platoon commander’s car.
“Is it really okay not to go to the bus terminal?”
“yes! Please only go to the end of the dirt road.”
“Yeah, it’s me, okay.”
Our unit is located on the top of a mountain, so we have to drive down a winding dirt road for about 20 minutes by car, and then drive another 20 minutes to reach Yangju Bus Terminal.
When we went down halfway down the dirt road like that, a brown sonata was coming towards us from the opposite side.
“Vice-Captain, that’s the car.”
“ah… ! so?”
I got out of the deputy platoon commander’s car and got into the sonata driven by Uncle Sangsoo.
Short greetings were exchanged, and Uncle Sangsoo turned his car and started going downhill.
“But is it okay if I come up here?”
I said to Uncle Sangsoo’s question.
“yes? What does that mean?”
“You were waiting at the beginning of the dirt road. However, I noticed that there was no guard post, so I kept coming up, but I was wondering if it was okay to come in here.”
“ah… ! It will be fine.”
next day.
Korea University College of Science building.
I said, pointing to the book Youngmi is holding.
“uh? Didn’t you return it?”
＜Turbulent flow>
It was a book I borrowed from the library last month.
Since I was on leave of absence, I borrowed the book with Youngmi’s student ID and asked Youngmi to return it before returning to the unit, and now the book is in Youngmi’s hand.
Youngmi smiled at my question.
“After the final exam, I watched it out of curiosity, and it was interesting.”
Do you think this book is interesting?
At Yeong-mi’s words, I turned into a surprised expression.
I don’t know much about engineering, but I do know about the fact that turbulent flow analysis is the king of fluid mechanics.
German physicist Werner Heisenberg, famous for his uncertainty principle, said that he would like to ask God two questions when he dies. One of them is the theory of relativity and the other is turbulence.
In other words, turbulence was a difficult problem for the great physicist who established quantum mechanics.
However, I couldn’t help but be surprised when Youngmi, who had not yet learned fluid mechanics properly, said that the graduate-level book on turbulence was interesting.
Seeing my surprised expression, Youngmi continued to speak as if trying to rectify the situation.
“So I mean… After reading the book, it means that introducing the concept of probability into differential equations is fun, not that you understand the contents of this book. Don’t get me wrong.”
Youngmi scratched her head and continued.
“By the way… What the heck is a Reynolds number (Re)? I understand the formula, but I’m not sure what this actually means… .”
Whoops!
Kim Young-mi, you surprised me many times today.
Reading a fluid mechanics book without knowing the Reynolds number… I thought it might be a joke.
I turned my head to look at Yeong-mi, but judging by Young-mi’s expression, I don’t think it’s a joke.
The Reynolds number is an index indicating which is more dominant among the inertial force and the viscous force in the flow of a fluid.
When the viscous force is dominant, the Reynolds number decreases and the flow of the fluid becomes laminar.
Conversely, when inertial forces dominate the flow of a fluid, the flow becomes turbulent with a high Reynolds number.
For reference, the laminar flow can be accurately analyzed and predicted, but in the case of turbulence, a complex and irregular vortex or eddy is created in the process of rapidly dispersing the kinetic energy of the fluid, so the mathematical interpretation of turbulence is complicated and difficult. It’s virtually impossible beyond that.
After my explanation of the Reynolds number was over, Youngmi held the ＜Turbulent flow> book in front of me and said,
“Mathematical interpretation is impossible, so what did you borrow this book for?”
“ah… ! It was just to see if there was a pattern of vortex spreading out.”
“A vortex spreading pattern? Hmm… … .”
Youngmi seemed to think for a moment… He opened his mouth carefully.
“Are you talking about the vorticity equation?”
OMG… ! Today, Youngmi is saying that she lifted me up and put me down.
I turned my head to look at Yeong-mi, and Yeong-mi said with a smirk at me.
“Chae Jung-ho! I’m going to fall off my chin, my chin! shut your mouth But why did you try to check the vorticity equation?”
Before long, we had arrived in front of Professor Park Soo-Soo’s lab.
I said with a sly smile to Youngmi.
“Hmm… ! You will soon find out.”
I knocked on the lab door, and I heard Professor Park’s voice coming from inside the lab and opened the door.
In the laboratory, Professor Park and the major’s sister were seated.
I first introduced Youngmi to Professor Park, and after a few greetings, I sat down and opened my mouth.
“Professor, what day is it today?”
Professor Park Soo-Soo was wearing a suit and a tie, but it was the third time today to see a professor like this.
The first time I gave a keynote speech at the 1994 winter academic conference of the Association of Mathematicians in middle school was the second, and today was the third time at last year’s reunion of separated families.
Professor Park answered my question with a smile on her face.
“Jeong-ho, didn’t you say you were making an important announcement? I think today is going to be a very important day for me, so I don’t think I should wear anything casual, hehehehe—!”
major announcement?
I looked at the major sister.
I sent a questioning look at where the word ‘important announcement’ came from, and my sister shrugged her shoulders with an expression that she didn’t know.
Meanwhile, the professor said to me with a look of anticipation.
“Perhaps… … The proof of the Riemann hypothesis has been completed… are you?”